Genetic Diversity Analysis through Phenotypic Assessment in Bt-Cotton Germplasm

Abstract

The present research was carried-out to analysis the genetic diversity in a set of 26 Bt-cotton genotypes for seed cotton yield and its associated traits. Results showed that genotypes differed significantly P ≤0.01 for all the traits, registering the significant genetic variability among the genotypes for further evaluation. With regards to mean performance, varieties BH-180 and KZ-389 displayed better performance in terms of plant height, bolls plant-1, seed cotton yield plant-1, monopodial branches plant-1 and sympodial branches length, suggesting that these genotypes can further be exploited for various breeding programs to improve upland cotton genotypes. In cluster analysis, all genotypes divided into nine small clusters, cluster one consisted of five genotypes which were characterized as high yielding genotypes suggesting that genotypes of this cluster could be utilized for future breeding programs in order to get better yielding varieties. In total, first three principal components accounted 75.90% variability, which is considered very high and could be utilized for further breeding programs in cotton. The obtained results may provide a helpful guide for selecting specific genotypes with distinct genetic backgrounds in cotton breeding programs.